A little bit about Jude:

Jude Hayland has been a freelance writer of commercial short fiction for many years and has been widely published in women’s magazines in the UK, in Australia and South Africa and, in translation in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. In 2013, her first full-length novel, TRUTH TO TELL, was completed and in 2017, her second novel, COUNTING THE WAYS was published. Amongst the first cohorts of students on the University of Winchester’s Creative and Critical Writing M.A. courses, Jude graduated with DISTINCTION and since then has combined a career in writing, teaching and examining. A previous runner-up in the Bridport Short Story competition, Jude is now working on her third novel. Growing up in London, she has lived in Winchester for over 20 years, but spends part of the year living in a village in north west Crete.

My latest Flash Fiction

The engagement ring, found in the pocket of a drowned sailor, remained unclaimed. Unpossessed.

The overloaded Iolaire sank within view of harbour lights, losing 205 war-weary survivors on the last stretch of their long journey back to Lewis. To Harris. Celebrations and reunions were in their minds. Not death. Not so close to home.

The morning of January 1st. 1919, they were seen dancing like sea-horses, onlookers said, their bodies tossed back and forth carelessly in frothing waves.

A woman among so many bereft.

Her ring, that token of promise, of unconditional love, undelivered.

Counting the Ways – what’s the novel about?

Grace Barnes, living in her subterranean one-room flat at the nether end of Earl’s Court, feels out of tune with striving, self-seeking 1980s London. Meeting Archie Copeland, she is gratified to have found a man who shares her obsession for reading and seems more fascinated by Shelley than shifting share prices.